-
Asked by 624spea43 to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 18 Nov 2014.
-
Andrew McKinley answered on 18 Nov 2014:
The moon is approximately 380,000 km from earth. It takes light approximately 1 second to travel from the Earth’s surface to the Moon’s surface – and this is the basis of the simplest – and longest running – experiment from the Apollo moon landings!
They left a reflector on the moon, and experiments are still going on whereby a laser is shone at the moon, and the time taken for the reflections to arrive back is used to then determine how far away the moon is. From these data, NASA have found that the moon is gradually moving away from Earth!
-
-
Matthew Camilleri answered on 18 Nov 2014:
As Andrew stated the moon is approximately 380, 000 km away, but it is constantly moving away, increasing the rate the more it moves away from Earth.
Don’t worry, it will take millenia for the moon to move away from Earth sufficiently enough to change the tides of the Earth and have drastic effects on all the eco systems found on planet earth.
-
Laura Schofield answered on 19 Nov 2014:
The boys have given you a pretty good answer here, but did you know that British scientists are planning on sending a probe to the moon in the next 10 years? That is incredibly exciting! Here’s an article so you can read some more about it! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30102343
Comments